‘Mars Needs Moms’ Trailer #2 Fails To Impress

Two of this year’s alien movies, Battle: Lost Angeles and Mars Needs Moms, hit theaters on the same day next month, and while the former promises to deliver lots of gritty sci-fi action, the latter is aimed primarily at young moviegoers.

A second trailer is out for Mars Needs Moms and although it boasts some colorful imagery that’ll keep the kids entertained, adults are unlikely to be too impressed with the humor and jokes on display.

Here’s the official synopsis for Mars Needs Moms:

Take out the trash, eat your broccoli – who needs moms, anyway? Nine-year-old Milo (Seth Green) finds out just how much he needs his mom (Joan Cusack) when she’s nabbed by Martians who plan to steal her mom-ness for their own young.

Milo embarks on a quest to save his mom – a wild adventure that involves stowing away on a spaceship, navigating an elaborate, multi-level planet and taking on the alien nation and their leader. With the help of a tech-savvy, underground earthman named Gribble (Dan Fogler) and a rebel Martian girl called Ki (Elisabeth Harnois), Milo just might find his way back to his mom – in more ways than one.

Simon Wells (The Prince of Egypt) directed and co-wrote the screenplay for Mars Needs Moms, which has a clever enough premise that should amuse the under-10 crowd and looks overall to be mostly harmless. On the other hand, the pop culture jokes about Botox and Nintendo Wiis in the second theatrical preview feel kind of bland – and they might be a proper indicator of the movie’s approach to humor in general. That’s not to mention that the first Mars Needs Moms trailer also implied that Fogler will once again be doing his best (re: unamusing) Jack Black impersonation in the film.

There’s also the matter of Robert Zemeckis’ motion-capture technology, which admittedly looks to have yielded much more convincing results in Mars Needs Moms than The Polar Express, or even the 2009 adaptation of A Christmas Carol. However, the human characters still seem to occupy that uncomfortable region between the cartoonish exaggerations of people in Pixar or DreamWorks animated films, and the appearance of real-life actors. It’s noticeable enough to be kind of distracting, and at times is a tad bit creepy.

Mars Needs Moms hits conventional and 3D screens on March 11th. Unless you’re heading out to the theater that day with kids in tow, you might just want to give Battle: Los Angeles a try instead.